Re: HORSA vs. EXWA

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 68947
Date: 2012-03-13

W dniu 2012-03-13 00:51, dgkilday57 pisze:

> "Law-like influence" is stretching things a bit, and frequency can
> hardly be the kingpin. I would bet my pants that 'tail' is more frequent
> than 'woad' with most English-speakers, for example.

The correlation is observable, measurable and highly robust. Of course
the outcome of a stochastic process is not predictable in individual
cases and individual exceptions do not falsify a statistical correlation
(e.g. the replacement of OE hy: by Scandinavian-derived ME they does not
disprove the general tenacity of personal pronouns).
It goes without saying that numerous other factors are involved (e.g.,
if a rare but useful word inhabits a safe "ecological niche" thanks to
its semantic specialisation, it may survive in it like the tuatara).

By the way, *taGla- and *waiDa- are both common Germanic, with only
tentative cognates outside the branch; the older word supposedly
translatable as 'tail' survives as Eng. arse -- also an old and
respectable meaning, very possibly the original one for this word, if
Hittite evidence is anything to go by. I wonder why 'tail' is number 35
on the Swadesh list while 'arse' never made it there.

Piotr